Okeh 8455 – Blind Lemon Jefferson – 1927

Blind Lemon Jefferson, circa 1926; as pictured in the Paramount Book of Blues.

In his all-too-brief four year recording career, Blind Lemon Jefferson produced nearly one-hundred songs that helped to define the country blues and open the door for future guitar-slinging blues singers to record their art.  All but one of those records appeared on the Paramount label—a few of which have been examined previously on Old Time Blues—this time around, we turn our attention to the odd one out.

As 1926 turned to ’27. Blind Lemon Jefferson’s recording career entered its second year.  The previous one had seen a bountiful debut, producing a total of twenty recorded songs to his credit (roughly one-fifth of his total recorded output), all for Paramount Records of Port Washington, Wisconsin.  The Texas bluesman was becoming a sensation, and other record companies soon took notice.  It wasn’t long before the Okeh record company—then a subsidiary of Columbia Records and top competitor to Paramount with their extensive catalog of popular “race” records featuring the music of black artists—was the first to act  Early in 1927, Jefferson was contacted by Atlanta-based Okeh representatives Polk C. Brockman (best remembered for orchestrating Fiddlin’ John Carson’s recording debut) and T.J. Rockwell.  They extended an invitation to Jefferson for a recording session in Atlanta, to which he obliged.  The singer arrived at his destination in mid-March, a little later than expected, for Jefferson had made an unplanned stop in Shreveport, Louisiana, as he had never “seen” the city before.  Thus, on March 14, 1927, Lemon Jefferson recorded seven songs for Okeh, and one more the next day.  The first two of those titles were released the following month, comprising Okeh 8455.  When the record began to gain steam on the market, Paramount evidently threatened legal action against Okeh for “poaching” one of their top stars, and as a result, the remaining six sides were never issued.  While the recordings are now presumed lost, what is known of those six songs reveals a rather different character than most of the material he recorded for Paramount.  Of those six titles, “Elder Green’s in Town” was a version of “Alabama Bound”, and “Laboring Man Away from Home” was a rendition of the English ballad “Our Goodman” (also recorded by others as “Cabbage Head Blues” and “Drunkard’s Special”).  “English Stop Time” was an instrumental piece similar to “Buck Dance” pieces recorded by many blues and ragtime guitarists.  “Woman’s Labor Man” (or “Laboring Man Blues”) and “‘Stillery Blues” were evidently original songs never otherwise recorded or published.  When Lemon returned to the Paramount recording laboratory in Chicago the next month, he remade “My Easy Rider” for as “Easy Rider Blues”, coupled with a re-recording of “Match Box Blues”.  The company saw to it that Lemon didn’t get away again, and all of Jefferson’s further recordings were for Paramount.

Okeh 8455 was recorded on March 14, 1927, in Atlanta, Georgia.  It was first advertised for sale on April 23 of the same year.  Great efforts have been taken to coax out as much music as possible out out of this, quite frankly, wiped out record.

On the “A” side of Okeh 8455, Lemon sings a re-telling of his famous “Black Snake Moan”, one of his more popular Paramount recordings, which he had recorded about five months prior to his Okeh session.

Black Snake Moan, recorded March 14, 1927 by Blind Lemon Jefferson.

The “B” side contains Jefferson’s first recording of another of his most memorable—and most widely covered—hit songs: “Match Box Blues”.  Jefferson subsequently re-recorded two more takes of the soon-to-be blues standard upon his return to Paramount, each one noticeably different than the others.

Match Box Blues, recorded March 14, 1927 by Blind Lemon Jefferson.

Victor 21361 – Ernest Rogers – 1928/1927

Ernest Rogers in the 1940s, pictured on the dust jacket of his The Old Hokum Bucket, 1949.

We have heard once before from that Atlanta newspaper man and down-home song spinner—and one of my personal heroes—Ernest Rogers, when he graced us with his memorable rendition of the old vaudeville song “Willie, the Chimney Sweeper”.  Now, he’s with us once again, this time with perhaps even better material (though that old dope head Willie is hard to beat).  As I have already biographed Mr. Rogers somewhat thoroughly in the aforementioned article, I urge you to look there for the basic facts.

During his own life, Ernest Rogers was best known as a newsman, rather akin to the South’s answer to Walter Winchell as host and lead reporter of the Atlanta Journal‘s daily “Radio Headlines” program on Atlanta’s pioneering radio station WSB (“Welcome South, brother”).  Today however, it is his musical proclivities—namely the five records he made for Victor in 1927 and ’28—that have won him his most enduring fame, yet his activities in the field were far from limited to making records.  Rogers copyrighted his first song while still a student at Emory University in 1919.  When radio was in its infancy, Rogers joined the staff of Atlanta’s WSB, his crooning and guitar-picking making a hit with listeners at a time when, in Rogers’ own words, “anybody who could sing, whistle, recite, play any kind of instrument, or merely breathe heavily was pushed in front of the WSB microphone.”  In 1922, at the same time he was busy making his name on the radio, his composition “Tune in With My Heart”—celebrating the newly emerging medium—was recorded by popular baritone Ernest Hare.  Rogers made his own recording debut three years later, waxing a memorable—and probably the first—rendition of the vaudeville folk song “Willie the Weeper” coupled with his own composition “My Red-Haired Lady”.  Later in 1925, Francis Craig’s Atlanta-based territory band recorded Rogers’ waltz song “Forgiveness”, featuring the singing of a young James Melton in his first recording, helping to bring the tenor singer to prominence.  The year of 1927 began Rogers’ association with Victor Records, which proved to be both his most fruitful record engagement and his last.  In his first Victor session on the seventeenth of that February, he began with a duet with WSB announcer and director Lambdin Kay titled “Mr. Rogers and Mr. Kay”—probably in the style of the popular comic song “Mr. Gallagher and Mr. Shean”—which was never released.  He followed with a remake of “Willie the Weeper”, retitled “Willie, the Chimney Sweeper” but nearly identical to his earlier recording.  The following May, he traveled to Camden, New Jersey, to make six more sides, starting out with a similar re-do of “My Red-Haired Lady”.  “The Flight of Lucky Lindbergh” celebrated the intrepid aviator’s historic journey only two days after he had landed safely in Paris.  On “Let Me Be Your Man in the Moon”, Rogers yodeled nearly three whole months before Jimmie Rodgers made his first record.  Finally, on February twenty-third of the following year, he completed his recorded legacy in a session that mirrored his first Victor session, making two sides of which only one was issued.  Out of a total of twelve recorded sides to his name (including the two unissued), nine were original compositions.  Though his recording career had thus ended, Ernest Rogers’ musical interests were far from their conclusion.  He continued to publish songs in the decades that followed.  Popular hillbilly artist Lew Childre recorded “My Red-Haired Lady” several times during his career [though having not heard the song, I cannot verify that it is indeed the same one].  In his later years, Rogers’ career as a newspaperman had taken precedence over his music-making, but he nevertheless never ceased from entertaining with his homespun ditties when the opportunity presented.

Victor 21361 was recorded in two separate sessions; the first side was recorded on February 23, 1928 in Atlanta, Georgia, the second was recorded on May 23, 1927, in Camden, New Jersey.  It was released in July of the same year, and remained in Victor’s catalog until 1931.

Providing stiff competition to his “Willie, the Chimney Sweeper” for the title of Ernest Rogers’ best remembered song—surely thanks in no small part to its reissue on Tompkins Square’s Turn Me Loose—is his “The Mythological Blues”.  Rogers first composed the humorous song during his time at Emory University in 1919—the same year in which he founded the Emory Wheel—but it went unrecorded until his final session nearly ten years afterward.  With its lyrics contrasting ancient Greek and Roman mythology with the modern times of the Jazz Age (“of all the sights saw Jupiter spot ’em, seein’ sweet Venus, doin’ Black Bottom; oh take me back ten-thousand years when they played the Mythological Blues”) it makes for a marvelous swan song.

The Mythological Blues, recorded February 23, 1928 by Ernest Rogers.

On the flip, Rogers sings “I’ve Got the Misery”, but it sure sounds to me like there’s every known indication that he’s got the blues.  This side shines with some of Rogers’ poetry at its most eloquent: “Well, the fire in the stable destroyed the town; but it’s the fire in your eyes that truly burns me down.”

I’ve Got the Misery, recorded May 23, 1927 by Ernest Rogers.

Okeh 4890 – Fiddlin’ John Carson – 1923

If there is a figure more deserving of the title of “Father of Country Music” than Jimmie Rodgers, one such contender is Fiddlin’ John Carson, who, while not the first to make records of what could be called “country music,” was undoubtedly one of the first to find great success doing it.

John William Carson was born in the north of Georgia—county of Cobb or Fannin—on the twenty-third of March, though there is dispute as to which year, probably 1874, though some sources suggest 1868 (earlier census documents, as well as his death certificate, agree with the later date, while later ones support the earlier year).  Before turning to life as a musician, Carson found work on the farm and railroad, as a jockey, making moonshine, and in an cotton mill.  In 1913, Carson participated in the first Georgia Old-Time Fiddlers’ Convention, coming in fourth in the fiddling contest.  He went on to take home first prize from the Convention a total of seven times between 1914 and 1922, earning him the nickname “Fiddlin’ John”.  In the cradle days of radio broadcasting, Carson made his debut on the Atlanta Journal station WSB on September 9, 1922 to great public acclaim.  Soon after, he was noticed by Atlanta furniture dealer and Okeh record distributor Polk C. Brockman, who spotted Carson in a newsreel of a fidders’ convention, and persuaded Okeh record man Ralph S. Peer to record the fiddler.  On the fourteenth of June, 1923, Fiddlin’ John Carson made his first record at 24 Nassau Street (now 152 Nassau Street NW) in Atlanta, cutting only three sides, the first of which was unreleased and presumably destroyed.  Peer reportedly thought the two tunes were “plu-perfect awful,” but released the record nonetheless, and was surprised when sales took off like a skyrocket.  Whatever Peer’s personal taste, he was too smart to pass up a sure thing, and it was clear that the people wanted what Carson had to offer.  Before Carson’s recording career began, fiddlers Don Richardson and A.C. “Eck” Robertson had made records of “country” music, in 1914 and 1922 respectively, but both did so only sporadically and without enormous success.  Carson, on the other hand, began recording prolifically in the wake of his debut session.  Five months after cutting his first two sides, Fiddlin’ John traveled to New York City for another session, this time laying down a total of twelve sides, a number of which, like “You Will Never Miss Your Mother Till She’s Gone” and “Be Kind To a Man When He’s Down”, achieved considerable success.

Though far from the most skilled fiddler or talented singer, Carson appealed to record-buyers of the 1920s with his folksy manner and archaic sound that evoked memories of simpler times, which many longed for in the days of fast living, T-Model Fords, and New South industrialization.  Carson was also politically active within his state of Georgia, and used his music as a tool to further those ends, such as to promote the populist Democrat Tom Watson, or to condemn the accused Leo Frank for the 1913 murder of thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan.  He continued to record for Okeh until 1931, producing a total of 155 sides, of which all but seventeen were released.  Many of those featured his daughter Rosa Lee Carson, better known as Moonshine Kate, and band the Virginia Reelers.  Three years after concluding his engagement with Okeh, Carson went to Camden, New Jersey, to begin a new series of recordings for RCA Victor’s Bluebird label, an arrangement which only lasted but two consecutive sessions in February of 1934.  In those two marathon sessions, Carson, with Moonshine Kate, guitarist Bill Willard, and banjoist Marion “Peanut” Brown, recorded twenty-four sides, all of which but four were released, many of which were re-dos of his popular Okeh recordings.  Thereafter, he retired from professional musicianship.  In his later years he worked as an elevator operator in the state capitol of Georgia.  Fiddlin’ John Carson died in Atlanta on December 11, 1949.

Okeh 4890 was recorded around June 14, 1923, in Atlanta, Georgia.  These are takes “B” and “A”, respectively, both the earlier of two released takes of each side (only the latter of which are listed as issued in the DAHR).

Firstly we hear Carson’s history-making performance of the once-popular 1871 minstrel song by Will S. Hays: “The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane”.

The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane, recorded c. June 14, 1923 by Fiddlin’ John Carson.

Nextly, Fiddlin’ John delivers an equally rustic performance of “The Old Hen Cackled and the Rooster’s Going to Crow”.

The Old Hen Cackled and the Rooster’s Going to Crow, recorded c. June 14, 1923 by Fiddlin’ John Carson.

Okeh 45317 – W.T. Narmour & S.W. Smith – 1929

One of the truly outstanding acts of old-time music was the fiddle and guitar duo of Narmour and Smith, who were quite comparable—both in style and ability—to the Stripling Brothers of Alabama, personally I’d even go so far as to venture that I might like these two better.

The pair was made up of William Thomas Narmour, the fiddler, and Shellie Walton Smith, who played the guitar.  Narmour was born on March 22, 1889 and Smith on November 28, 1895, both in Carroll County, Mississippi, where they spent most of their lives.  Narmour learned his craft as a boy, on a fiddle fashioned for him by his father—also a fiddler—from a cigar box.  He joined forces with Smith, his neighbor, to provide music at local functions.  When Smith was unavailable, Narmour sometimes with the local blues musician Mississippi John Hurt.  At a 1927 fiddle contest in Winona, Narmour and Smith were discovered by record dealer, talent scout, and veterinarian Dr. A.M. Bailey, who referred them to the Okeh company to cut a record.  Thus, they traveled some hundred miles north to Memphis, Tennessee, to record their first six sides on February 15, 1928.  Those first thee discs proved a considerable success, and so the duo returned to the recording microphone the following year, this time traveling a longer distance to Atlanta, Georgia.  That session resulted in one of the most successful “hillbilly” records of the time, a two-sider featuring “Charleston No. 1” and “Carroll County Blues”.  Its popularity was so that six months later Narmour and Smith took a train all the way to New York City, where they put down another eight tunes on two September days, plus an appearance on Okeh’s “Medicine Show”, a musical skit record much like those made by the Skillet Lickers.  They concluded their Okeh engagement in 1930, with two sessions in San Antonio, Texas.  After four years of recording silence, Narmour and Smith returned to Atlanta for one final marathon session, this time for Bluebird, who had also poached the talents of fellow old-time stars Fiddlin’ John Carson and Gid Tanner’s Skillet Lickers for their respective last recordings.  In all, the duo of W.T. Narmour and S.W. Smith left behind a recorded legacy of nearly fifty sides.  Both Narmour and Smith remained in their native Carroll County for the rest of their lives, living primarily as farmers, and later finding work at the local school as a bus driver and janitor, respectively.  Narmour also operated a garage in Avalon.  Willie Narmour died on March 24, 1961, two days after his seventy-second birthday.  Shell Smith followed him seven years later on August 28, 1968.

Okeh 45317 was recorded March 11, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia by W.T. Narmour and S.W. Smith, at their second session.  Narmour playing the fiddle, and Smith on guitar.  Unfortunately, this junk store copy is quite worn; both sides play fairly well for the first two-thirds or so, becoming quite crackly toward their ends (such that if I tried to clean them up, I’d surely lose my mind).  Nevertheless, both sides still put out a strong signal over the crackle.

“Charleston No. 1”, as its name would suggest, was the first in a series of “Charlestons” played by Narmour and Smith, up to “No. 3”.  They later re-recorded the three “Charlestons” for Bluebird in 1934 titled as “The New Charleston”.  The number is said to take its name from Charleston, Mississippi, rather than the popular dance or the likewise named cities in South Carolina or West Virginia.

Charleston No. 1, recorded March 11, 1929 by W.T. Narmour & S.W. Smith.

Narmour and Smith’s famous “Carroll County Blues” is a sublime performance, a prime example of just how these two really could get right.  Like with the previous number, they later followed up “Carroll County Blues No. 2” and “No. 3”, and re-made all three for Bluebird as “New Carroll County Blues”.

Carroll County Blues, recorded March 11, 1929 by W.T. Narmour & S.W. Smith.

Okeh 40188 – Jack Linx and his Society Serenaders – 1924

In another installment in Old Time Blues continuing series on territory jazz bands, let us turn our attentions to a hot little group from deep down south: Jack Linx’s Society Serenaders.

Scarcely any information seems to be available regarding Jack Linx and his Society Serenaders.  Based in Birmingham, Alabama, they formed in the first half of the 1920s and played gigs around town.  In 1924, they traveled to Atlanta for the first of several sessions for the Okeh record company.  They returned to Atlanta every subsequent year until 1927—twice in 1925.  In that three year recording career, they cut a total of twenty-three sides for Okeh—including jazz standards like “Tiger Rag” and “Sweet Georgia Brown”, and original compositions like “Don’t You Try To High-Hat Me“—of which all but four were released.  When the Starr Piano Company brought their Gennett mobile recording laboratory down to Birmingham, Linx’s band cut three more sides, though all were rejected, this time calling themselves the “West Lake Ramblers”.  In 1929, the band secured a position as the house band of Birmingham’s stately new Thomas Jefferson Hotel and adopted the name “Jeffersonians” accordingly, and they played on local radio station WAPI the same year.

Okeh 40188 was recorded in Atlanta, Georgia on August 28, 1924 by Jack Linx and his Society Serenaders, their first released record from their first session, consisting of their second and third recorded sides.  It was also released in the United Kingdom on Parlophone E 5263.  The Society Serenaders consist of Coleman Sachs on cornet, Jack Linx on clarinet, soprano sax, and alto sax, Sidney Patterson on clarinet and alto sax, Seibert Traxler on clarinet, tenor sax, and baritone sax, Eph Tunkle on piano, Maurice Sigler on banjo, Frank Manning on tuba, and Carroll Gardner on drums.

First up, they play hotter than you might expect from a band called the “Society Serenaders” on an out-of-this-world rendition of Wendell Hall’s hit “It Ain’t Gonna Rain No Mo'”, with a low-down and slightly raunchy vocal by banjoist Maurice Sigler.  Interestingly, it seems to be the only side they recorded to have a vocal.

It Ain’t Gonna Rain No Mo’, recorded August 28, 1924 by Jack Linx and his Society Serenaders.

On the “B” side, they play the Art Kassel and Mel Stitzel novelty composition “Doodle Doo Doo”—which served as the theme song for the former’s Chicago-area band—featuring a dandy rag-style piano solo by Tunkle.

Doodle Doo Doo, recorded August 28, 1924 by Jack Linx and his Society Serenaders.